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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land One day, Atari’s Phil Harrison believes, physical game media will be no more. No more DVDs, CDs, and no more video games in plastic boxes. Phil’s take: “There’s a generation of kids being born today and probably already alive who I’m pretty confident will never buy a physical media product. They will never buy a DVD, they will never buy a CD, and they will never buy a game in a box.”
With game companies all over the world depressed about the impact used game resales have on the industry, Atari offers up a simple solution – make games people don’t want to let go of.
Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeons & Dragons and Test Drive Unlimited haven’t been forgotten by Atari. The publisher plans to bring each of those series back to its line-up — but not until after 2009.
As we previously posted, Atari have picked up the rights to the Ghostbusters game, left in limbo ever since the Activision/Vivendi merger killed off the game’s original publisher, Sierra. The company plans to release Ghostbusters “early next summer”, to coincide with the first movie’s 25th anniversary.
Former Sony and current Atari exec Phil Harrison has been in the industry for eons. He’s learned things. And while talking about Unity middleware platform at the Unite 08 conference in Copenhagen, Harrison discussed why many game projects fail. It’s inside baseball, but here’s Harrison:
SingStar boss Paulina Bozek has left Sony’s London Studio to join Phil Harrison at Atari/Infogrames. While at Sony, she’s been the Executive Producer and Game Director of the 15 million selling SingStar juggernaut. In her new role at Atari/Infogrames, she’ll be development director of a new online game studio. Says Harrison:
This is a significant step in expanding Atari’s online game development capability. Paulina is one of the industry’s most respected creative leaders with an outstanding track-record of commercial and creative success and I’m delighted that she will bring her unique vision, consumer insight and proven ability for creating amazing entertainment experiences to Atari.
Hit the jump for the press release.
Phil Harrison didn’t just work at Sony, the dude was Sony. Cut him and he’d bleed PlayStation. So when he upped and left for Atari earlier this year, there’s no way all he was going to get was a pat on the back and a “thanks for your time”. No, he was due something nice. Nicer than a gold watch, even. Something like this snazzy PlayStation-themed plaque, which SCE commissioned for him so he could hang it on his wall at Atari and remember the good old days, when he got to talk about games people actually gave a hoot about.
[via UK:R]
And the clock strikes rumour o’ clock. VG247 say that, according to “highly placed sources”, they’ve learned why Phil Harrison left Sony. And it wasn’t for an office door that read “Directeur Général Délégué”. They say it was because development of the PS4 was about to kick off, and Phil just couldn’t bring himself to go through the whole thing again.
He could see he was about to get involved in another PlayStation cycle, and obviously wanted something new. The same thing was happening again and he’d been through it enough times to want to move on.
May be true, may not be true, either way, it’s a possibility. We’re just surprised Sony took so long to get started on the PS4, seeing as companies normally start on their next console as soon as they’re finished the last one.
Rumour: Looming PS4 cycle was real reason for Harrison’s departure from Sony [VG247][Pic]
Before Phil Harrison left Sony to work for Atari, he cleaned out his desk. But before that, he was inventing stuff. What kind of stuff? Futuristic stuff. A new Sony patent has surfaced for a handheld gizmo that features a touchscreen and “pressure pads” running around its edges. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, it’s a “handheld device with touchscreen and digital tactile pixels” that can also be used to control the touchscreen. There’s no specific mention of the PlayStation Portable, but the patent does mention potential uses in phones, gaming devices and portable media players. What’s more, it does sound suspiciously like what we heard last year about the rumoured PSP2… Hit the jump for images of the patent.
Seeing as the pair were running the show as far as the PlayStation brand was concerned, you’d think Kaz Hirai and Phil Harrison would have at least discussed Phil’s move to Infogrames, yes? No. Turns out big Phil’s move was as much a surprise to Kaz as it was the rest of us:
At the time, I didn’t know he was going to Atari. It was obviously a surprise when he told me he was going to move on. But, you know, it’s a small industry and he’s obviously remained in it and from his perspective, it was a great thing to move on to a new challenge.
Oh…oh Kaz. There, there. You’re still beautiful, OK? It was him, not you. Him.
Kaz Hirai interview…[Three Speech]
